The Great Filter

The danger of looking for answers to the big questions in life is that you might not like the answers. In my last blog I listed ‘filters’ that could prevent life from developing into higher levels and intelligence itself. The problem with higher intelligence is that it makes any creature incredibly selfish. We are all aware of our unique specialness in the universe. We all want to keep our selves happy and comfortable and we will go to any lengths to do so. And some of us are better able to do just that. The people with financial interests who continue to sell coal, gas and oil that will increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The people who make fortunes creating chemicals that pollute and degrade our ecosystem. Others who continue to exploit the planets shrinking resources for profit despite the harm it does to animals and humans alike. And those who seek to keep the masses poor and uniformed to benefit themselves. I think I have found the Great Filter, it is intelligence itself. The knowledge of rich and poor, happy or sad, hot or cold, content or discontented. This is why we are having problems with finding other intelligences in the universe, there are none, they do not survive themselves, their selfishness as a species is always going to be their downfall. The Great Filter is a useful tool, could you see the human race out in space? Exploiting the universe, destroying countless worlds as we are now destroying ours. No, not really, and it is probably a good thing. Look at how we have treated others on our own planet that were not like us, who do not believe like we do, behave like we do, think like we do. It is diversity that has made life so successful on our world, diversity that has led finally to intelligence. It will be the destruction of that diversity in life and in thought that will be the end of us. It is hard to deny the reality of this, just a mornings glance at your Facebook page reveals all these forces at work in our planetary society. We know what to do, we can do it, and we can survive ourselves. We must, everything depends on it.

This will be the last of my blogs for some time. I find that I have spent too much time reading, researching and writing these. I need to get back to my novels and finish up some work there. I have gotten a lot of things off my mind in writing these but it is time to get back to some real work. (Below, one of my own favorite paintings of life on our planet.)